


i am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be

by spinalchord



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula Joins the Gaang (Avatar), Azula and Zuko are smart on their own but together they’re moronic, Clown-to-Clown Communication, F/F, Gen, I mean it's fuckin ozai so, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Swearing, TWs will be in the notes, Violence, Zuko Joins The Gaang Early (Avatar), Zuko being a good brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26997733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinalchord/pseuds/spinalchord
Summary: Azula is fourteen when she tries to kill her father. The accumulation of her older brothers banishment, the pressure of perfection, and the violence of her father turned wholly onto her, everything begins to spiral.
Relationships: Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Azula & The Gaang (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula (Avatar)/Original Female Character(s), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 505
Collections: A:tla





	i am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be

**Author's Note:**

> hey yall ik i havent posted since like may LMAO but um heres this funky little tidbit because honestly there arent enough like azula alone type fics
> 
> Title is from Townie, by Mitski  
> \-------  
> TWs!!  
> child abuse  
> graphic violence  
> a brief mention of child's death in the fourth section and on paragraph 4.  
> death  
> \-------  
> 

Azula remembers the first time Father struck her. She’d been only seven, the naivety of childhood wearing thin and the beginning of her strive for Father’s approval.

She’d been at the foot of Father’s throne, flames licking the air before her when she was performing a particularly tricky kata and stumbled at the end. 

She landed hard on her knees, and stared at the marbled floor as she heard Father get up, and step forward. Azula’s heartbeat rattled painfully against her ribcage, dropping to her stomach as she raised her eyes. Father met her gaze with cold fury. 

“This is unacceptable,” He snarled before backhanding her across the cheek, her head snapping to the side and his rings cutting into her face. Azula blinked back her tears, for even at seven she knew better than to cry in her Father’s company. “I understand,” she said thickly, somehow curling her body into a bow and scampering away with her hands cradling her wound.

Later, when she was in her room inspecting the bruise, her brother slipped in. “Did he hurt you?” He asked mournfully, his pale gold eyes stuck to the purple mottling. Hesitantly, Azula nodded. Zuko sighed, and cupped warm hands around her cheek, cradling her head to his thumping chest. They sat that way for a long time.

Azula didn’t know it, but that backhand was just the beginning of an extensive list of injuries. When she was eight and her father had broken her wrist and gripped her upper arm in a white-hot grip. When she was nine, and he’d spit sparks at her, flecking her collarbone and chin with little scars. When she was ten and he’d scarred the tips of her ears with burning fingers. But no matter how trivial or severe the injury, her brother would always try to sooth it with his gentle hands, holding her tight until she didn’t feel as humiliated as before.

When she was eleven it got worse, after Zuko’s pathetic Agni Kai, Father’s rage was turned wholly onto her. The day her brother was banished, she’d retreated to her room early and cried herself sick, cradling her own face to try to remember the feeling of her brother’s gentle palms, soothing her wounds. 

In another world, as Zuko was held down and branded, she smiled. In this one, she grimaced and turned away. 

* * *

Azula is fourteen when she tries to kill her father. 

She’s laid the details out in her mind: the guards who are favorable to her working the entrance of his stupid throne room, get in and slit his throat with her katana, hide the evidance and let them assume assassins. However, things went violently askew when her father knocked away her sword, and when she heaved blue flame at him, he’d wrapped his searing hands around her wrists and then around her throat.

Azula pants, father’s thumbs digging into her jugular, his fingers reaching up to brush against her jaw in white-hot agony. She spits in his face as he burns through skin and muscle.

Fury rumbles through her bones, and she meets her father’s eyes as he squeezes harder. The heat has died down, and now his fingers dig into the oozing wounds.

  
  


She grunt-screams, then kicks out, catching him between his legs and then across the face. His nose crunches under the heel of her boot, and she kicks him away, scrambling to retreat across the stupid shiny floors, her katana still clutched in her trembling hand. 

  
  


Azula gets to her feet and sprints to her room, where a to-go bag sits under her bed. _Bandages, coinpurse, weapons,_ she thinks desperately, slinging it across her back, tucking her katana into it and unraveling her topknot with fast, shaking fingers. Her whole body aches with pain.

She throws her crown to her bed and wrenches the window open, slipping through without a sound. She sticks to the shadows all throughout Caldera City, and then steals a boat and cries as the wind and salty air bite against her mutilated throat.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Azula stops in a small Earth Kingdom village first, buying ointment, a straw hat, and a pale green tunic and dark pants. She painfully wraps her wrists first, the bindings a soft yellow that reminds her of home. 

In the murky water’s reflection, she slathers burn cream over the swollen wounds. Her neck is permanently inlaid with the curl or her father’s palms, his thumbs bracketing the sides of her throat and the rest of his fingers knotted behind her neck. A bit of her hair was burnt in the scuffle; it falls brittle and short by the burns. 

  
Azula wills away the tears from her eyes as she wraps the bandages around her neck. She’s lucky, she knows, that most of the damage was done to the back, for if Father had targeted the front she’d be dead. 

  
  


There's no doubt that news of her treason has spread far and wide, the Fire Lord with two traitor children. Grimly, Azula ties her tunic and tugs her straw hat low to shade her imperial eyes.

* * *

  
  
  


The next town Azula stops in, it’s for food. She keeps her eyes low and hair loose, exchanging currency and goods with the vendors with minimal conversation. She knows that she has a distinctive voice, so when someone asks her a question, she pitches it down. 

When they ask for her name, she gives a different one each time. She smiles the way she used to practice in the mirror, back when she had no need for smirking or slyness. 

  
  


She laughs at the vendor’s weak jokes and pretends her gut isn’t roiling with disgust and revulsion, at herself, at these fucking peasants, at these poor villagers who just want to survive. She leaves the day she arrives.

  
  


The next town she docks at was razed to the ground. Azula stares at the destruction, standing stupidly at the edge of her stolen boat and feeling dumbfounded. She leaves when she catches sight of a child’s writhed, crisped body.

  
  


The next town is Gaoling, a beautiful town really, nestled in the rolling mountains and filled with verdant greenery and lush, busting life. She walks the streets and buys a bigger bag and another tunic, a sleeveless one that reminds her of the fire nation with its scooped neckline and thicker belt. 

Azula buys a cup of sweet tea and listens to the rumors of the blind Bei Fong child kidnapped by the Avatar. They mention Ba Sing Se. 

_My brother would follow that stupid child anywhere_ , she thinks, dourly.

Azula leaves the day she arrives. 

She sticks to her routine for a while, slipping through the Earth kingdom with careful strokes. Her burns heal, leaving twisted, raised pink scars. Azula removes the wrappings from her throat but keeps the ones on her arms. 

* * *

  
  
  


The line for immigration into Ba Sing Se is tedious and winding and Azula wants to tear her hair out, settling to run her hands over her ragged ponytail. 

  
  


She slips her passport between her fingers, runs the paper’s edge over her knuckles, and prays that her face has changed in the months since she left the Fire nation. The line crawls forward.

“Next!” The woman who checks her passport is loud and wears gaudy makeup and a big headpiece. Azula smiles vaguely and answers her questions. 

The woman makes a little hmph sound and flicks her eyes from the picture to her face. “You got scrawny, kid. Go ahead.” Azula bows, shallowly, and clinks her payment onto the counter. She hurries to the ferry.

  
  


She settles next to a pretty girl. In the dank, griminess of the boat, she’s like a beacon of light in a set of pale green and burnt orange robes. The girl turns to her and smiles, and she has green eyes and chestnut skin and dark, fluffy hair that’s braided down her back with the tail tucked under itself. She seems to have an odd combination of Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe features. “Hey,” She says, and even her voice is beautiful. Azula tries not to stare too hard. 

“Hello.” They settle in silence for a bit, until the girl swallows and turns to her again. “What’s your name?” she asks. 

Azula squashes down the fluttery feeling that arises when she looks at her and decides to take a risk. She wants this pretty stranger to hold the curves of her name between her teeth, a selfish whim.

“Azula. How about you.” 

“Azula,” She muses, rolling it over her tongue. “ A-zu-la. That’s awfully Fire Nation. My name’s Emaya.” 

“That’s pretty.”

“Thanks. So, what brought you to Ba Sing Se?”

Azula contemplated the question for a second, flicking her gaze back to Emaya. “I’m looking for some old friends,” The half-truth is fluid off her tongue. She wasn’t called a prodigal child for nothing.

“Oh yeah? If you want, I can show you around Ba Sing Se. I had to go to Hakatu for some stupid seasonal spices. I work in a bakery,” She explains, and Azula has to blink away fond memories of stealing into the Palace kitchens with Zuko during the solstices.

“Of course.”

“It’s a date,” Emaya grins, and Azula flushes deep and ruddy. “It’s a date,” She echoes, and glances shyly at the pretty girl. They chat mildly through the rest of the ferry ride, through the disgusting meals and the choppy waters. When they dock, Emaya twines her fingers with Azula and pulls her through the port, pointing out everything that she finds interesting.

When they finally reach Emaya’s bakery workplace, Azula is red-faced from laughing and Emaya is out of breath, a smile bloomed across her face. Azula has never felt like this before. All of her boyfriends had been chores, a political truce between nobility, something to further her social standing. 

Azula wasn’t used to having fun. She was forged in blood and strife, built of cruelty and fear. Her father had drilled into her how the only fun she’d ever have was cutting down the inferior. _But that's not true,_ she realized with a giddy pang. _Father was wrong. Father is_ always _wrong. He was wrong about Zuko and Mother and Iroh and Lu Ten._

Azula decides, drinking in the sight of a radiant stranger, that she doesn’t care anymore. Fuck the Fire Lord, and his shitty, genocidal ancestors.

She grabs Emaya’s hand and leans forward and is met in the middle with a pair of soft lips and the brush of a hand against her jaw. Emaya breathes a ghost of a laugh, and pulls back. “I was waiting for that,” She smiles, and then beckons her into the shop. “I’ll get us some mooncakes.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Azula spends half of her time with Emaya, the other half scouring the city desperately for her brother and uncle. 

Emaya gets her a job at the bakery, and Azula spends most nights sneaking into her and her parent’s apartment. They sleep, curled together under Emaya’s mass of blankets, sometimes talking deep into the night.

“What happened?” The dark skinned girl once asked in a murmur, fingers feather-light as they traced the knots of scar tissue. Azula leaned into her touch. “My father,” she whispered back. “He’s a cruel man. He burned my brother as well.” She doesn't mention how many mountains she's had to cleave through to say it.

Azula looked away from Emaya’s wide, wide eyes. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t been entirely truthful. I've been trying to find him and my uncle in Ba Sing Se.”

Emaya hums. “That’s alright, love. We all have our secrets.” She pressed a kiss to Azula’s cheek and then tucked a stray chunk of hair behind her ears. “Good night,” She whispered, breaths soft against the other girl’s collarbone, and Azula stared at the ceiling for a long time. “Good night.”

* * *

  
  
  


Emaya was insistent that every Thursday they tried a new restaurant. “Date Night,” she had once proclaimed proudly, her hands on her hips as she stared at Azula until she accepted. It was one such Thursday that Emaya dragged her to an up and coming teashop.

“Hurry up, I heard that they serve the absolute best jasmine tea. It’s their namesake,” She’d said excitedly, cutting through the bustle of Ba Sing Se with ease, dressed in a nice tunic and pants, puffy hair free down her back. 

  
  


Azula hummed, and matched her stride to keep up with the energetic girl. The upper ring was truly a sight to behold, the buildings tall and pale, all the greenery verdant and trimmed to perfection. It reminded Azula of home.

Emaya stopped in the doorway of a big deep green, wooden framed building. She slung an arm over Azula’s shoulders, discarding the amused cut of her eyes pointedly as she led them inside. The teashop was practically empty.

“So, basically, you know Kiel, from work? Anyways, he said that he had the most _delectable_ oolong here, and when I started asking around, almost everyone had been to this place! So here I am, feeling like a dolt because we’ve been trapezing through all of these restaurants and ignoring this gem.” Emaya sits delicately at a vacant table, and picks up the menu.

“What are you thinking, babe? Azula?” She looked up, when Azula didn’t respond. But Azula wasn’t paying attention, her gaze locked desperately with a serving boy who was similarly frozen. 

  
  


“Zuko?” She whispered, the boy’s startled expression melting into encompassing, tangible relief as he carefully set his tray down, Azula waiting until he was done before springing forward and crashing into him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Zuko clutched at his sister’s shoulders, head bowed, shaggy hair brushing against her cheek and jaw.

Emaya hung back, taking a moment to catalogue this new person. There was no doubt that this was Azula’s elusive brother, not with their twin features. They shared the same inky hair and translucent skin, the same gold eyes and straight noses, defined jaws and arched brows. Now, they even had matching scars, although where Azula carried hers around her neck, Zuko carried his across his face. 

Azula had her fists balled around her brother’s apron. She decidedly shoved him back, tears making her eyes flash. “You stupid fuck!” She shouted. “You had to open your fucking mouth and get booted, huh?” Zuko looked sheepish.

He started to say something before his eyes zeroed in on the handprints singed into her throat. “He got you too,” he said angrily, before gathering Azula into his arms again. Azula let out a single sob, going boneless in his grasp. An old man poked his head out of the kitchens. “Nephew? Are you alright?” Zuko twisted to give his uncle a watery smile, and wow, just that had shaved years off of his hollow face. He had extraordinary teeth. “Better than alright,” he said, and shifted so that Azula could face him.

The old man’s face crumpled, somehow a happy gesture. “Dearest niece,” he crowed, busting over and wrapping the siblings in a gentle hug. 

Emaya coughed, awkward. She fiddled with the tie of her belt, head snapping up as the old man, presumably Azula’s uncle, cleared his throat. His face was kind. “I’m so glad that my niece wasn’t alone in this vast city,” he said gravely, wrapping two warm hands over her own. “Thank you”

The girl flushed. “It’s really nothing, sir,” she said shyly, glancing at Azula, who was looking at her with a fond expression on her face. 

Zuko looked between then, the furrows between his eyebrows smoothing as he connected the dots. He murmured something to his sister. She scoffed, and tugged at the back of his hair. He slaps away her hand, and it’s so _domestic_ that Emaya can tell that their uncle is holding back tears.

The old man turns back to Emaya. “Please, call me Uncle Iroh. And let’s get you two some tea and catch up.”

* * *

After the fateful reunion at The Jasmine Dragon, Azula, sometimes accompanied by Emaya, spends most of her time with Zuko and Uncle Iroh. Her poor brother almost has a hernia when he learns that the Avatar is in Ba Sing Se. She even trots outside to pluck a fresh flyer from one of the posts nearby, and slaps it down on the table vindictively. 

“That stupid fuckin’ kid, it’s a wonder he’s not dead.” He growls, looking incredulously at the address printed proudly at the bottom. Uncle looks amused as he puts a gentle hand on Zuko’s shoulder.

“Nephew, I thought that we were done pursuing the boy.” 

  
  


Zuko huffs pointedly, like he’s gearing up to say something, before slumping. “Yeah, I mean there's something shameful about consistently getting foiled by a preteen.”

  
  


Azula braces herself on her elbows as she nurses a cup of steaming tea, one of Iroh’s experimental blends. “That sounds embarrassing.” Zuko throws a thawing package of mochi at her.

She ducks and lets it hit the wall with a dejected plop. 

“Are you done?” Uncle asks. Zuko just heaves a sigh.

* * *

  
  
  


It was a mild, milky Wednesday when Zuko dropped his dual dao on the table in front of Azula, and said gravely “I know where the bison is.”

Azula arched a brow, Emaya looking at him quizzically. “Those, fucking uh, ninja guards, the Dai Li. For some reason they have the Avatar’s bison.”

“And how, pray tell, do you know this.” Zuko didn’t even have the audacity to look embarrassed. “I may have attacked a guard. But he spilled everything, so, win-win?”

  
  


Azula put her head in her hands. “How are you not dead,” She asked mildly. Zuko shrugged. 

“Luck, I guess. Anyways, you in?” Azula lifted her eyes with a smirk. “Duh, stupid. What kind of sister would I be to let you scamper off to your inevitable death without backup? Let me get my katana” 

Emaya raised a hand. “Slow your roll, guys, hold on. What exactly is your plan?” Zuko shrugged, Azula sliding from her booth and skipping to her bag, where her weapon was tucked under. She pulled it free with reverence, Emaya looking away from the sight pointedly.

“Get in, free the beast, get out. It’s the least I can do for the Avatar, considering our past.” Emaya coughed. “What _is_ your past with him?” The boy’s face reddened. “Um, it’s complicated. I’ll explain later. Besides,” he added, trying to diverge away from the subject. “Do you have any experience fighting or infiltrating?”

Emaya shook her head. “No. But good luck, and stay safe." Azula sidled next to her brother, and then leaned over the table to kiss Emaya’s cheek. “Love you,” she said, and punched her brother’s arm when he gagged. Emaya smiled, wearily, and waved goodbye as the pair slunk out.

* * *

  
  


“Great fuckin’ plan,” Azula screamed at her brother over the rush of water as the peasant girl commanded wave after wave to drench her, Azula spitting chunks of wet hair that tangled between her teeth in the frenzy.

She snarled, and flung a wall of blue flame that hissed as it dissolved the violent crest of water. “We’re trying to help you, idiot!” She heard her brother shout at the flighty airbender. The kid paused, clinging on a pale, iridescent stalactite. “For real?” He grinned. He launched off the rock and fluttered down with a flourish of air. 

Zuko sheathed his dao, and held his hands up. “I know where your bison is,” He said stonily. The waterbender ceased her onslaught, her nonbending brother waving his boomerang around like a bufoon. “Hey, Crazy-Blue, is that right? You guys know where Appa is?” Azula turned to snap at him, but shut her mouth with a click. “Yes,” Azula decided to sniff. “My blockhead brother attacked a guard and found out, because he feels guilty or something.” She rolled her eyes. “What a tool.” 

The nonbender laughed. "Shut it, Sokka," his sister snapped, and he dutifully fell quiet.

Now that the attacks had weaned, Azula shook her wet hair out it’s ponytail, sighing as it dripped onto her soaked robes. The waterbender shifted, what was her name, Kata or whatever, and with a glare, she gathered the puddles into a single swirling mass, tucking it into a neat globe and stuffing it into her waterskin with ease. She was mildly terrifying. “If you’re so sure you know where Appa is, then show us.” She padded closer to the Avatar.

Zuko dipped his head. “Pretty sure it’s this way.” A small child walked with the peasant brother to complete their team. Her pale eyes narrowed as she shifted. “Yo, Sparky,” She barked in the direction of Zuko. “Tell me a lie. I need a basis to see how shit of a liar you are.”

Zuko stood awkwardly. “Um, I’m a turtleduck.” The girl laughed, once, sharp and clear. “Oh yeah, this guy’s an open book.” 

  
  


Zuko flushed. The girl’s affirmation had seemed to appease the Avatar, who bounced on his toes. 

Something nasty sparked in Azula’s gut as she looked at the kid dressed in saffron-orange, which she quickly shoved down. Huffing, she grabbed Zuko’s arm and pulled him along the damp hallways towards the bison’s enormous cell.

* * *

  
  
  


When they reached the bison’s cell, the Avatar started crying. “Oh Appa,” He weeped, running his hands over the beast’s matted, dirty fur. Chains dug into the dusty flesh of the sky bison, the skin around the chains raw and bloody. Appa keened as the Avatar unwound the bindings with gentle hands.

The blind child’s expression drew in, suddenly. Her round face was pensive. “Someone’s coming,” She announced. 

Immediately, the Avatar and his team fell into fighting stances, the blind child sliding back one bare foot and holding her hands ready, the tall waterbender whirling her arms, calling the moisture from the walls and air and even Azula, who shifted uncomfortably as the water drifted from her damp robes and loose hair. The Avatar, after freeing his pet, stood ramrod straight, clinging to his glider fiercely. The nonbender shifted, angling himself and his boomerang towards the door. Zuko held his dao by his side, apprehension spilled across his scarred face, Azula calling her fire to her palms.

They waited in silence for a moment, the only sound the churning of the waterbender’s vortex of water. Then the iron door was flung open, and a terribly familiar face was looking down at them, rich robes spattered with blood. Azula and Zuko shared a stricken glance. “Father,” Zuko finally said, terror drawing his words tight.

* * *

  
  
  


“My two children, traitors.” Ozai said with an ugly look on his face, looking at Azula and Zuko with malice between his teeth. “I’m not surprised, one is a coward and one is a coward who tried to assassinate me. I should’ve killed you in that throne room, for surely that would have been a mercy compared to what I'll do to you and your brother.” 

He turned to Azula as he said it, his daughter sneering.

The Avatar and his team hesitated. “Azula, you tried to kill your dad?” The Avatar asked in a small voice. The Water Tribe siblings exchanged a surprised glance as the girl let the fire in her hands grow, the ghostly blue throwing the whole cave into stark relief. 

“I’ll make sure to finish the job this time.” She sprang forward and clapped her hands together, flame converging in a wall that descended upon her father.

  
  


Ozai batted it away like a fly, and punched powerful blasts towards both of his children. Zuko twisted away, and slashed at Ozai’s neck, making his way behind the Fire Lord.

  
  


The man, glancing back, caught sight of Zuko with his fire-rimmed swords and, one hand sending an unrelenting wave of heat and flame towards his daughter, the other hand catching his son around the neck and slamming him down. Zuko bared his teeth, and the waterbender wrapped a water-whip around Ozai’s shoulder and heaved, a determined shadow to her blue eyes and sweat beading at her brow. 

“Katara!” The Avatar screamed as Ozai cut through her water-whip with a slash of his hand, sending a fireball spiraling towards her. Grunting, Katara blocked it with a wall of ice, which shattered on impact and showered her dark, ruffled hair with glimmering shards. The Avatar sent a spiraling tunnel of air that caught Ozai in the chest and flung him back a pace.

He then dived at Ozai, knuckles white on his glider, forcing the hand holding Zuko down to reach up to swat him out of the air. Zuko scrambled out of his reach, taking a moment to hang back before twirling his swords and going at him again, firing blasts of flame between jabs and slashes.

The Avatar fumbled down next to the waterbender and touched her shoulder gently, asking her something. the girl nodded, shakily, and bent the ice out of her loose hair into daggers that flew at Ozai. The nonbender (what had his sister called him before, Sokka?) flung his boomerang at him, getting a good _whack_ in as the curved wood and metal connected with the Fire-Lord's head.

  
  


The blind girl shifted and flicked her wrist, her expression careful and bemused as she bent columns of rock that disoriented Ozai, ending her onslaught with a boulder that smashed him between the shoulder-blades. 

The man snarled as something in his back snapped. He stumbled to his knees, and, desperately flung out a ring of fire that circled the edges of the enormous cell.

Appa reared, and Team Avatar recoiled, the waterbender having to yank the earthbender away from the licking flames.

Azula was suddenly lit up, white-blue energy twisting her face into sharper plains, lighting crackling around her, gloving her lethal hands, gearing up to point it towards Ozai. The man snarled, reaching around until he caught Zuko by his hair, dragging him in front of him.

Zuko had rough welts across his neck and arms, blood poured from his hairline, and his nose was set at an awkward angle. He spit at Ozai as he dragged him in front of him, Azula almost seizing from the force of her furious lightning. “Come on,” Ozai shouted. “Kill your brother!” Azula, shaking, looked at Zuko with desperation beading in her eyes. “Do it,” he said softly. “It's the only way"

Azula squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them they were filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” She said between numb, trembling lips. Zuko’s face was grim as he seemed to steel himself. Screaming, she let the lightning go.

* * *

  
  
  


Zuko took the blast in stride, drawing his arms in, flinging them out. The light was blinding. Azula flinched back as the lighting struck the metal grate at the top of the cell. 

Appa roared, and Zuko, panting and pale, veins of raw and ruined skin twisting around the charred strike site on his tunic, smiled. 

  
  


Azula, sensing an opportunity, grabbed her forgotten katana from the scabbard over her back and stuck a stunned Ozai through the chest. Blood oozed from the messy puncture, and the blade had glanced off a rib, but it was a deadly blow. Azula wrenched her blade out as Ozai raised his eyes to meet her own, that oh-so-familiar shade of gold. Red slipped from his mouth as he choked. 

“Fuck you,” he whispered, bloodshot eyes murderous, and then he died.

* * *

Azula stood, bones aching, holding a katana stained with her father’s blood, and met the proud, feverish gaze of her older brother. “Congrats on the killing blow,” he rasped, and then slumped to the cavern floor, dead to the world. 

Katara hurried to him, uncorking her waterskin, but Azula put a hand ( bloodstained, burnt, scarred) on her shoulder and looked at the door with steely eyes. “We have to get out of here,” She said factually. “Can we hitch a ride?”

The Avatar nodded, shakily. “Get him on Appa,” Katara said, putting out the fire with the rest of the dank cell’s available water.

Azula leaned down, and heaved her brother over her shoulder. He was worryingly bony. She accepted Sokka’s helping hand, and settled against the dirty bison exhaustedly. “I’m going to have to ask for another favor,” She said as Katara sat next to her, easing Zuko off of her shoulder. The blind girl vaulted herself onto the bison’s head next to the Avatar with a casual display of powerful earthbending. “I need to pick up some friends.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  
“Dear Agni,” Uncle said, holding Zuko’s hand as Katara used the spirit water to chase away the major damage. Emaya had a stricken look on her face as she took in the damage done to Zuko, her hand clasped desperately with Azula’s.

“Um, sorry to interrupt,” She says after a pregnant pause, the only sound the swirling of water from where Katara was hunched over Zuko with a glob of glowing water splayed over his chest. Her green eyes danced from face to face and expression still twisted the same way it had settled into after Azula finished her retelling of what happened. “But where are we going?” 

The Avatar, _Aang_ , Azula corrects herself, shoots her a bone-weary grin. “The Western Air Temple. We’ll be safe there. 

  
  


“Wow,” Emaya says, leaning back onto her free hand. “I’ve never been there before.” Toph laughed. “Not many have, Newbie.”

Katara draws back, face pinched. “It’s the best I can do for now.” Uncle pulls her into a firm embrace, uncaring of her sweat and grime. “Thank you, my dear.” He says, and Katara blushes. 

  
  


Azula tilts her head back and watches the sky rush by with lazy eyes. She knows that she should be worried; her father’s dead, and the Fire Nation needs a new Fire Lord willing to undo a century of war and devastation. It's going to take a long time to set everything right again.

But for right now, Azula is content to hold the hand of her girlfriend and listen to the soft chatter of her new family.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so to patch up a plothole, Azula was already hunting the gaang before she tried to assassinate ozai. That's how they already know who she is, and why they're surprised when they hear she tried to kill him.


End file.
